Everything but a Child of God?

Let’s Talk About Identity

Because Why are We Out Here Trying to Be Everything but a Child of GOD?

Sim Simma! Who got the keys to my beemer? Who am I?! (I had to do it lol)

Growing up, I always heard about getting to a certain age and starting to find myself. And I get that. If we think about it, we all have to get to a certain point in our lives where we re-evaluate what we were taught or learned along the way and decide what will stay and what has to go. These days, there has been an explosion of ideas concerning identity. The Conservatives vs the Liberals War is a little wild at this point, both sides taking on their own types of extremes.

On the one hand, you have the conservative group wanting to pass laws to say who can do and be what with their own bodies vs the opposite, the idea of actually identifying as any and everything. For the sake of picking a subject rather than bouncing all over the place, let’s discuss gender identities. What “we” say vs what God says.

There are three sexes. Yes, three because they are explicitly pertaining to sex organs observed at birth. Hence, the new terms “assigned” male, female, or intersex at birth. There are about 72 gender identities. Now, one would ask, “How Sway?” because I definitely did. In one of my classes, I learned a lot about the intersections of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Here are some basic terms with simplified definitions:

Cisgender: to identify with the sex that one was assigned at birth (born a female, stayed a female).

Transgender: identifies with a sex that was not assigned at birth (born a female, now identifying as a female)

Fluidgender: Does not identify as any specific gender consistently (may one day see themselves as a male, then a female on another day, etc.

Agender (nonbinary): Does not identify as any gender specifically (neither male nor female) pronouns are they/them

Exgender: refuses to identify with any gender along the gender spectrum

Many more genders exist along the lines of identity with nature, space, blankness, etc

So many identities. We have found so many ways to identify ourselves and set ourselves apart just to feel any sense of belonging. A little backward, isn’t it?

But what did God say?

He said that we are made in His image (Genesis 1:27), fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), that He had known us before we were formed (Jeremiah 1:5). He allowed us to enter into earth and time by forming us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). This God, our God, knows us, He knows everything thing about us, our movements and thoughts before they even get to our minds (Psalm 139: 2-4). He even knows the NUMBER of the hairs on our head (Luke 12:7). God knows all of these things about us before we even come to know Him.

AND THEN when we come to know Him in the pardon of our sins, we are His children (Ephesians 1:5), a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), of the royal priesthood called out of the darkness into the light (1 Peter 2:9), heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Through Christ, we have been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19), redeemed and justified (Romans 8:30). As His children, we are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28b) to do His good work (Ephesians 2:10).

So when it comes to being anything but a CHILD OF GOD, what then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31) None of these identities that we want to pick up and put on to set ourselves apart for a sense of belonging in another group can ever compare to our identity given to us by the  One who has made us in His image and knows us better than we know ourselves. Imagine creating something meticulously, with deep care and love, only to have it turn around and say that it never was what you created it to be. I can’t imagine the pain it would cause to love someone so profoundly and then be denied of all that you have done…

In short, I identify as what He has decided I am. More than a gender, a child of God. Because of who He says I am, I will stand as such, and you will address me as such.

Written with peace and love,

@nettathesexeducator